The nine old men would say “spend half your time planning and the other half animating. While this idea is hard to uphold, the basic idea is true. Going into a shot blind is like not studying for a test or stretching before a race. Clear planning, forces you to really think about what is important in the shot. Every time I animate straight ahead, I fall flat on my face and waste a lot of time figuring out what I set out to do in the first place. It really must become part of your routine. It is so important because it creates a foundation, something you can fall back on. I was always amazed at the planning that Doug Sweetland went though before he animated. He drew so many different ways of doing the same thing through thumbnails. Then he went off to record himself. Most people do video reference these days. It’s no big secret. The hardest part is to not rely on it to closely. You want to use the best parts. Another thing I have seen animators do is to write down what the shot means to them in a sentence… Where is the beat change? What is the most important thing in the shot? You always want to be asking these questions. If I have a character sitting in a room and the point of the shot is for them to be upset, I want to create a back story as to why. Maybe he is lost, maybe his his heart has been stepped on. How do I relate that to something I experienced? What is the deeper meaning? If you animate simply the cliche of upset, there is not heart or pathos. Dig down deep and pull out something personal and it will show up on the screen…. Follow a ritual of solid planning and you will add a new layer of complexity to your work.

-Andrew

11 Comments |

pete

But when planning, how do you get into that moment with the acting? I know in a feature, you have to stay within the character within the story but also to get really into the skin of the character – genuine and natural and try to make a performance that is not been seen before. I find this very difficult because acting is subjective/feeling and not so black and white such as something like a walk cycle or run. Any thoughts/tips on this? Cheers Dr Gordon!
Pete

Gerry

J Y

Thanks a lot, Andrew! Been trying to make a 2-D short, and even though I thought that thumbnailing and rewriting everything multiple times was enough, I’ve still been having to stop and replan everything again. I never really appreciated how hard planning is! I’ll definitely try out the techniques that you suggested.

It is amazing how different planning could be for curtain people. Lets me use two great animators as examples.

Disney Legend Milt Kahl, was known for planning out shots in his head and through thumb nails to an extreme. Floyd Norman talked about walking past his office and seeing Milt just sitting there. Then he would walk past his office a few hours later and would see Milt still just sitting there. At first Floyd didn’t know what the heck he was doing. But soon Floyd realized that Milt was planning out the scene in his head. Milt new exactly what he was going to do before he put pencil to paper to start animating.

Now go to someone like Glen Kean and he would say that he doesn’t know where the scene is going to exactly go before he puts pencil to paper. Glen would let the scene come to him through the process of animating. However, this does not mean Glen did not plan ahead. He planned in a different way. He tried to study different pieces of art in order to get inspired. He has a notebook where he sketches his family, trying to capture moments that really resonate with him and hit him in a personal way. He even talked about the transformation of the Beast as coming from the renewal he found in becoming a Christian. And, he talked about Tarzan interacting with Jane for the first time, being resonated from seeing his daughter for the first time.

Bottom line, you don’t need to know exactly where you are going to go. You do, as you pointed out, need to be prepared and make it personal.